352 Oliver Cromwell [1654-
at as an owl, if he go but one step out of the ordinary course of his fellow justices in the reformation of these things/* Hence the value in Cromwell's eyes of the Major-Generals established throughout England in the autumn of 1655. They were not simply military officers charged to keep an eye on the political enemies of the government, but police magistrates required to repress crime and immorality in their respective districts. Pride put a stop to bear-baiting in London by killing the bears, and to cock-fighting by wringing the necks of the cocks. Whalley boasted, after he had been a few months in office, that there were no vagrants left in Nottinghamshire, and in every county his colleagues suppressed unnecessary alehouses by the score. Nor was it only humble offenders who were struck at: neither the rich nor the noble escaped the impartial severity of these military reformers. " Let them be who they may that are debauched/' said Cromwell, " it is for the glory of God that nothing of outward consideration should save them from a just punishment and reformation." He claimed that the establishment of the Major-Generals had been " more effectual towards the discountenancing of vice and the settling of religion than anything done these fifty years." Their rule ended in the spring of 1657, and Cromwell feared that the work of reformation would come to a stop. But the experiment had infused new vigour into the local administration, which lasted as long as the Protectorate endured.
In spite of these restrictive laws, it must not be imagined that there was any general suppression of